Luna was furious. These people were supposed to work together and create a new settlement. It was her job to scout the surroundings and help them establish themselves, but she was not working for them. The expedition was organized by the Pathfinder Guild and the settlers had been delivered here, but it was not her job to keep them safe forever. Certain rules had been set in place for participants, such has giving up the allegiance to their former kingdoms, but now Luna had started to suspect that some had only been sent here to spy on the progress, maybe each kingdom had even sent their own spies and they were not really invested in this idea of ‘starting over’. Luna was absolutely sick of the political bullshit and had been prepared to just leave it behind from the start.

Luna had found a nice spot and tied herself and the backpack to the tree trunk, then relaxed back on the tree branch to cut some extra shuteye. If they were going to travel through the night, she would need every bit of energy possible to stay awake and vigilant.

The most curious thing happened, Luna dozed off and woke up fully refreshed when the sun had set and the last light was leaving. She thought about possible explanations and it was rather easy to come up with a good one. For some reason Young Roots worked while sitting in a tree. That opened up quite a few options, but she would have to test the limitations. While in the capital it had not worked while in the house, was it because the distance to the ground was too big and it would have worked had she slept in the basement? Did the Skill recognize if something was man-made and not work?

Luna banished the ideas, they were food for thought at another time. She grabbed her water skin and some meat jerky and had a quick, bland and solitary dinner. Her vision Skill had automatically activated when she woke up in the dark. She could see quite a bit, especially if she stayed still and Silent Observer activated. Sadly the canopy was now blocking her vision and Luna untied herself from the tree, leaving the backpack in place and started climbing higher.

After a bit of searching she found a spot where a big branch had broken off and left a big opening in the canopy for her to look through. From her position roughly 8 meters in the air she could now see the flickering lights of the campfires in the distance. Without Silent Observer helping her maintain the position Luna thought it would have been impossible to stay in the same position and watch. She had no idea how long it took, but at some point two figures appeared on the grassland, walking roughly in her direction.

She watched them approach and she was about to climb down to get closer when she saw more shapes appear behind the first two, keeping their distance and following them. Now Luna was convinced it were Evelyn and Fiona and someone was following the two.

Luna shimmied down the trunk, grabbed her backpack and jumped to the ground. Putting the string on her bow only took her a moment, then she was sprinting through the grass, an arrow already knocked. She circled around them to put herself in the blindspot of the following men and started to follow them in turn, waiting for them to make their move.

Luna could clearly see everything that was happening and counted six men, Christoph one of them, and one woman and it looked like none of them had a Skill that helped with their vision, as they were completely oblivious to Luna following behind them. At some point Evelyn had pulled out a torch to light their way, which made it very easy to follow her and Fiona.

It did not take long for the pursuers to make their move. The torch gave them perfect vision and the camp was far enough behind them that any noise would not make it, especially with the land rising up from the river up to the grassland they were now on.

It was, once again, Christoph who raised his voice. “Halt! You are surrounded.”

Evelyn and Fiona had been taken completely by surprise and jumped in fright, turning around and peering into the darkness, their night vision completely destroyed by the torch. From the darkness Christoph, Roman and Egon stepped into the light of the torch, the other slowly circling around to box Evelyn and Fiona in.

“We know the Pathfinder girl was sleeping in your tent the last two nights. Where did she go?” Christoph demanded from them.

Evelyn looked around, trying to figure out if there really were more people around them, but she did not feel any Mana being used and could not see through the darkness either. “I have no idea. Why are you bothering us?” She asked Christoph.

“We know who you are Evelyn, where you came from, we got a nice little dossier on every settler from Zollan. A third rate Alchemist from a border town, hiding away the heir of a noble house. You will both be coming with us and do as you are told.”

“So you are just a lackey of that pompous ass who calls himself king? I should have known someone would try to undermine this expedition.” Evelyn replied, deadly calm.

In the meantime, Luna had been busy. As soon as Christoph made his move she had followed the other 4 people. With three entering the torchlight and messing up their night vision and the other four splitting up, Luna had the perfect chance. Her previous hesitation was gone, these people were not here to talk.

[Babs]

Level 29, Human

[Fredo]

Level 26, Human

[Moe]

Level 21, Human

[Seb]

Level 21, Human

She slipped her backpack to the ground and got in position. A quick draw of the bow, Silent Shot, and Sneak Attack activated and her arrow flew true. The four had taken up positions in a rough square around the torchlight, still hidden in darkness. Luna had positioned herself directly behind Babs, the highest level of the four, but shot her arrow at Seb over at her right. He had been standing still and the arrow silently penetrated under his armpit, deep into his chest cavity. He dropped into the grass without making a sound.

Luna heaved a sigh internally, the first shot had been important. The more targets she could take out before being noticed the better the fight would go. She focused back on the conversation.

“I told you to get away from us. I am not joking.” She heard Evelyn say, but Christoph and his buddies simply started to laugh.

“Or what?” He asked her, laughing. “This whole expedition is such a joke. Nearly no Combat Classes to speak off. We planned ahead. All of us have Combat Classes, you do not stand a chance.”

When Luna had activated her Skills and used Mana, Evelyn’s eyes had snapped into her direction. She was sure that Evelyn was aware that something was happening in the darkness, but Luna had no idea how to let her know she was there. The decision was taken away from her, when something unexpected happened.

“Fiona, let none escape.” Evelyn said and the next moment absolute pandemonium broke out. A bright wall of flame appeared between the two women and Christoph and his friends, lighting up all the surroundings. Both Evelyn and Fiona started glowing in unearthly light, wind playing with their hair as they started firing magical projectiles. Christoph, Roman and Egon had no idea what hit them, as they were shielding their faces from the flames when they were ripped apart by icicles and flaming projectiles.

Luna was distracted for a second, the spectacle in front of her eyes too much for her to process. Until she realized that the remaining three members of the ambush party had started to run. Two of them were heading directly for her in the light from the magical fire she was suddenly very much visible. She only managed to fire one arrow before they reached her. Luna activated Double Jump to gain distance and activated Windwalk. A short sprint gave her enough room for two more arrows, taking down one of her pursuers. But with her Mana and Stamina being consumed at a massive rate, she had to face the last one with her melee weapons. Luna saw in the background how the last runner was taken down by Fiona, which meant she only had to delay this one until help arrived.

[Fredo]

Level 26, Human

Fredo was wielding a surprisingly professional looking sword and was wearing some kind of leather armor that tried very hard to look like it was a simple garment. Luna had dropped her bow and was now wielding her axe and buckler. She evaded his first thrust narrowly and caught the next overhand strike on her shield and deflected it to the side.

Luna was very glad she had gotten training in melee combat now. If she had tried to simply block the strike, instead of deflecting it, it might have ripped the buckler out of her hand or even injured her arm. Luna realized that Christopher had not been boasting, this man was training with the weapon. Her own strikes with the axe were easily evaded and Luna used double jump again to gain distance.

“Who are you?” She demanded.

“Shut up Laven scum.” He shot back at her, pressing the attack.

Luna dodged his next two strikes and waited for him to go for a horizontal slash, when the attack finally came she stepped into the strike, struck the attacking arm with her buckler, sending his swing wide, and charged shoulder first into him, throwing him backwards. Fredo tumbled and tried to get back up, but Luna was already upon him and the battle axe neatly cleaved through his collar bone into his chest. He dropped back to the ground and never moved again.

Luna stumbled backwards in exhaustion. The fight had taken everything she had, she went down on one knee and then the prickling sensation she had experienced when entering the mana rich zone started rushing over her skin again. Evelyn and Fiona had started approaching her, but stopped.

The rush lasted for a few seconds, then it stopped just as quickly as it had started. “You okay Luna?” Evelyn asked her. “What was that?”

Luna was slowly getting up, but had no idea how to explain it. “Talk later. We need to leave.” She told Evelyn and went looking for her backpack. Luna made two steps when she stopped and stared together with Evelyn and Fiona. All corpses around them were shining in white light and the bodies dissolved into the ground. Luna had never seen anything like it, but Evelyn started cursing loudly.

“What is it grandmother?” Fiona asked. “What just happened?”

“Did you see that? What place has absurd amounts of Mana, Monsters and corpses dissolving like that?” Evelyn asked them and Luna instantly understood, she had read about it in a book just before she left the capital. “Dungeons.” She replied and a cold shiver ran down her spine.

Evelyn had walked over to where the corpses had been. Luna and Fiona followed on her heels. Their bodies had disappeared, but their items were still there. Evelyn crouched down and picked something up from between the grass. “That is really weird. Human corpses normally do not dissolve inside a Dungeon.”

Fiona and Luna were looking at the item, but did not recognize it. Evelyn flipped it over to Luna, who caught it awkwardly. “Does your Skill work on items as well?” She asked Luna.

Luna nodded and focused. The item was a small grey piece of some kind of mineral. Stone or maybe some kind of metal? Luna had no idea.

[Dungeon Shard]

Fragments: 1 of 10

“It is a Dungeon Shard. Whatever that is.” Luna told her.

“I will explain later.” Evelyn responded. “We need to leave, check around for other items quickly and then we are moving.”

Luna complied and went to rummage around, finding another two similar shards. She grabbed her backpack and went back. Evelyn and Fiona had found four more of the shards, but they did not waste time to find out the details. Luna led the way, with Evelyn and Fiona following behind her, carrying a torch again to light their way.

Luna suddenly stopped. “I can’t just leave like that. With Christoph gone, there is no reason to not go back and warn William. I have no ill will towards the settlers.”

Evelyn shook her head. “I don’t think you should risk it. Zollan clearly had plans for this settlement and I have no idea how many more people were working for them from the start. They even knew who we were, which should be impossible.” Suddenly Evelyn’s head snapped back to Luna. “Luna, did Parrot tell you anything about us?”

Luna shook her head. “No, but he had a list of all the people coming here, which he gave to William.”

“That would do it.” Fiona chimed in. “All they had to do was check for our names and cross reference it with our Classes. It is well known that we are Alchemists.”

“But Parrot wouldn’t just give the list to anyone. Only the Pathfinder Guild would have access to that information.” After Luna finished the sentence her eyes went wide. “By the gods. Now I understand. The Zollan chapter of the Pathfinder Guild is working with their king.”

“What do you mean by that?” Evelyn demanded. “Of course they work for the kingdom, it’s their job after all.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Luna replied, sitting down on the grass. She suddenly felt very very tired. “The Guild is supposed to be neutral. Just work to protect the people and not take sides, maintaining neutrality and helping prevent active conflict between the kingdoms.”

“Someone must have given them the list of people. If what you say is true, then I’m doubly glad to have left the kingdoms.” Evelyn said to her.

Luna hopped back up leading the way back to where the fight had taken place. They had previously ignored the gear the people had left behind when their bodies dissolved, but now she had to verify her suspicions.

“What are you doing?” Fiona asked Luna.

“I’m trying to find out if he was carrying around a copy of the list.” Luna replied while rummaging through the garments that she thought had belonged to Christopher. She did not find anything at first, but when she found an inner pocket in his coat, she retrieved a small leather book.

“Got something.” She said and flipped open the book.

The book held a detailed plan for how to take over the settlement, information on the other residents, how to pressure them into compliance without making a fuss. It also held a timetable that listed expected new ship arrivals, with Zollan sailors carrying back news of their course.

Evelyn sighed. “Looks like you were right. We need to go back and find William, but keep the dungeon thing to yourself, ok? We do not know enough about it yet.”